Owner attacks Gladstone mum protecting daughter

Ross Irby
Reporter
Reporter Ross Irby has wander-lust mixed with a sense of adventure, spending way too many years roaming about Australia, its back roads and off-shore foreign lands.
Enjoys a yarn, story telling and tales, along with curiosity to find out about the lives and (mis)adventures of others.
An off-beat sense of humour, not taking it all too seriously, along with big doses of flexibility/adaptability whatever the situation is the best way to go.
You have to have the life experiences to have empathy...

FEARFUL that a barking dog would attack her a Gladstone woman swung her daughter's school bag at the canine while the seven-year-old girl, ran off screaming.

The owner of the fox terrier (which had escaped its yard) yelled at the woman "don't f***ing hit my dog". But the woman replied saying, "if your dog keeps coming out I swear to god I'll kill it. I'm sick of the dog chasing me and trying to bite me."

With the loud commotion going on, the dog's owner Elizabeth Hawdon jumped a fence and jumped into the woman causing her to fall.

DOG ATTACK: A dog owner attacked a woman who was defending her daughter from her pet.

Both women were on the ground and Hawdon began punching her with both fists, grabbing her hair and pulling it, causing her pain.

The woman also suffered a cut lip and her left eye was left heavily bruised.

The details emerged in Gladstone Magistrates Court when Hawdon, 38, pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm in Coase St on July 1. Lawyer Mark Platt said the dog was " a very cherished member of the family" and Hawdon simply lost her temper when the woman threatened to kill it.

Hawdon, a mother of three, also pleaded guilty to assaulting another woman in an unrelated dispute on December 13 last year, and having property used in a drug offence on August 11.